December 2008

SeaSTAR G2 : New High Performance Satellite Navigation Service!

Fugro Seastar AS is pleased to announce the introduction of a new service: SeaSTAR G2.
This new high performance navigation service combines the navigation satellites of both the American GPS constellation and the Russian GLONASS constellation, to produce a composite GPS/GLONASS position solution.
The service utilises Fugro’s own network of dual system reference stations to calculate ‘orbit and clock’ error corrections, on a satellite by satellite basis, for the two global navigation satellite systems thus providing consistent decimetre level accuracy positioning on a world wide basis.

As well as broadcasting the correction signals, Fugro provides the ‘G2 Engine’ – end user position processing software, which is embedded in compatible receivers (such as the Kongsberg Seatex DPS232).
At the present time the Russian GLONASS system does not offer full global coverage on a 24 hour basis, so in the Fugro system these satellites are used to supplement GPS, but when the Russian system does become fully available (which is expected by early 2011) it will be possible to select single system GPS or GLONASS modes for increased system independence.

Use of the full range of satellites from both the American and Russian systems ensures best possible service reception – even when satellite visibility is partially obstructed by large structures or ionospheric disturbances.
Use of more satellites also improves reliability by confirming data integrity.

The G2 service has undergone extensive laboratory and field tests and will be available from 1st February 2009.

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July 2008

New Broadcast Format

The time schedule for change of broadcast format on the following satellites AP-SAT, AM-SAT and AF-SAT is now set.
The change will only affect users on these three Spot service satellites at this time.
We do not expect that the change will have any effect other than a very short time gap in the data.
No action should be needed from users to implement the changeover.

Please note that any receiver that has not been upgraded with new firmware will stop working after the change of broadcast format.

Valid firmware versions are:

3000 and 3100 receiver- 04.01.03 or higher. Latest firmware: 04.01.05

3510 Receiver- VBS 02.06.05 or higher Latest firmware: VBS 2.10.05

8200 Receiver- 3.0 or higher Latest firmware: 3.57

8300 Receiver- 2.310 or higher Latest firmware: 2.312

User of Inmarsat service IOR, POR, AOR-W, AOR-E and Spot service EU-SAT will not be changed at this time and we will provide information on this later.

Spot service satellites IOR, AOR-EH and AOR-WH are already broadcasting on the new format.
No action from users receiving these satellites is required.

Please pay extra attention to your DGPS performance at the time of change and cycle power on the receiver if necessary.

The time table is:

Area Satellite Change date and time:

Asia/Pacific: AP-SAT - Tuesday 22nd July, 2008 at 0000 UTC
Americas: AM-SAT - Tuesday 29th July, 2008 at 1400 UTC
Africa: AF-SAT - Tuesday 5th August, 2008 at 0600 UTC

Please contact us if you want more information or need support at:
seastarservice@fugro.no
Phone +47 21 50 14 00
Fax +47 21 50 14 01

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January 2008

FUGRO has launched a new DGPS High Power satellite channel.

The new channel is named AOREH, is hosted on the Inmarsat communication satellites AORE and covers Europe and Africa.

This channel is supplementary to the exiting low power service on AORE.
With the implementation of this channel, Fugro essentially has global coverage of dual independent high power services.